Kaori's trembling. Her arms are tight against Chiho's upper back as she hiccups right by Chiho's ear. Kaori's strong, the type of girl who's yelled at the few boys who dared to make gross comments at Chiho during lunch. She's not supposed to be afraid of anything, but now she's curled up and almost crying right into Chiho's shoulder.

Maou meets her glance with blood orange eyes that must be glowing from Kaori's fear. Her friend is so scared that it's causing Maou's demonic side to slip out.

Chiho tightens her grip around her shoulders.

"Kaori, what happened? Are you okay?" To Chiho's side, Maou looks away and forward. He sniffs the air as if picking up a scent.

"Yeah," Kaori says quietly. "I'm okay, it's just been a really, really long night."

"What happened?" Chiho insists. "Where's Yoshiya? Is he okay?" Maou leaves the peripheral of her vision and forges ahead.

Kaori jolts against her. "Oh! He's in my room, but something's wrong with him, he keeps bleeding from—" Kaori twists out of Chiho's grip and right towards Maou who has turned back towards the pair. His eyes are glowing and when he speaks the words reverberate through the air.

"Why don't you sit down and relax. I'll check up on your friend for you."

Kaori loosens. Her shoulders slump and she slides to the floor until she's sitting on her knees.

"Okay. I'll just sit here." She murmurs.

"Mr. Maou!" Chiho steps past her friend. "Why'd you do that!"

When Maou doesn't shrink back sheepishly, something in Chiho's chest tightens.

"She'll be safer sitting there." Maou's calm tone sharpens. "There something that reeks here. Some kind of malevolent energy just lingering around."

"Malevolent..." Chiho can't smell anything, but there's a chill in the air that she isn't quite sure is from the damp air that came in with them. She strains her ears, listening to the silence of the apartment.

"But, what about Yoshiya?" If there's something here, then he's in danger too.

"That might not have been Yoshiya who was on the phone." Maou attempts a kinder tone, but the tension still makes his voice echo with his restrained magic. "It's not that uncommon for demons or angels to be able to take other people's forms." Maou looks away from her and stares down the short hall leading to the apartment's two bedrooms.

"That stuff is coming off of whoever's down there, and I doubt that a human would be producing that kind of energy."

Maou walks forward, leaving Chiho to stand still by the murmuring Kaori.

"You'd be safer staying here too. Let me check out this 'Yoshiya' first."

The wall and desk swirl together. The bed frame he leans against bends inward even though it isn't moving. Yoshiya's not falling back, but he sinks into the metal frame that feels as malleable as clay beneath him.

There's something wrong with him. His nose isn't bleeding, so he should be okay. But he isn't. There's something crawling around inside his skull, like spiders skittering across the crevices of his brain. No, no, they're crawling inside of it, carving out pieces to make room for themselves and scraping away at what's left of him.

"Holy crap, what happened to you?"

The world focuses, yet not really. The swirling mess of a wall is gone and in its place are two red suns. Glowing the red orange that they do when draped with fire smoke.

Yoshiya whimpers because he doesn't want to burn.

"Hey, hold still for a second."

The world reverberates and Yoshiya pushes himself back against the bedframe that refuses to bend more inward. Pressure wraps around his shoulders, holding him in place.

The spiders skitter, their legs sharping against his mind as the suns glow brighter. Their heat blisters the back of Yoshiya's eyes, sinking through the blood veins in his head.

The cold, sharp legs of the spiders curl up and disappear under the warmth. Yoshiya gasps at the as his thoughts realign themselves into some kind of clarity.

His fingers and toes tingle as if the oxygen has been sucked out of them while the solid bedframe stops bending beneath him. As the heat in his head soothes the raw scrapes across his brain, the two suns dim around the pupils that appear from their center. It takes a moment, maybe two for Yoshiya to realize that the glowing blood orange light comes from a pair of eyes staring right into his.

"Hey there, kid, are you hearing me now?"

The words are everywhere. The calm reverberation through the air encourages him to answer, even though...

"Yeah," Yoshiya says, his voice dull to his own ears, "I can hear you."

The silence that comes after almost gives him time to...something isn't right here. His thoughts ooze by so slowly that he should be able to grab onto why this isn't right. But the understanding seeps through his fingers until he can only stare dully at those glowing eyes.

"Why don't you tell me what happened to you?" The voice coaxes.

"The moon," A single spark of fear alights the words as Yoshiya gives the only answer he has. "it swallowed up the night."